


The Hospital

by anawitch



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Kid Fic, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 09:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1184708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anawitch/pseuds/anawitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is your name Gu-.. Ge-.. Jo-…”</p><p>“Stiles,” he interrupted. Nobody could say his real name.</p><p>“I’m Scott! I think we go to the same school!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hospital

He hated having to wait outside. Whenever they went to the hospital, he had to sit in the corridor in one of the too-big chairs all by himself while his parents spoke with the doctor. Everything was white, ceiling to floor, and any leaflets or magazines left lying around were far too complicated for Stiles to understand. There were toys to play with, but most of them were broken or too old to have any entertainment value. Besides, there was nobody else to play with. He swung his legs that didn’t quite reach the floor and sighed theatrically every few minutes, but there was no one to take pity on him. It was so boring.

Stiles wondered why his mom and dad were taking so long. They rarely left him alone for longer than five minutes, because any longer and he often found himself some trouble to get into. He preferred to think of it as finding some fun to have, but since his fun often ended in someone older than him screaming, or breaking something expensive, his parents disagreed. He slid off his seat and walked over to the heavy door. He tried look through the keyhole, but it was too slim- so was the crack beneath it. He pressed his ear against the wood, but he couldn’t hear anything other than a low murmur. That’s it. He was about to knock when a small voice from behind startled him.

“You shouldn’t do that,” it said. Stiles whipped around and saw a boy, slightly shorter than him with large, dark eyes and a wonky chin. “My mom said that if the door’s closed then the people in there are probably really busy and can’t play.”

Stiles pouted and returned to his seat. The boy sat down beside him, but Stiles ignored him.

“Is your name Gu-.. Ge-.. Jo-…”

“Stiles,” he interrupted. Nobody could say his real name.

“I’m Scott! I think we go to the same school!”

Stiles didn’t recognise the boy, but he obviously knew him. That made him feel kind of cool, and mysterious. He turned up his nose and shrugged.

“Are you in Ms Peters’ class?”

Stiles nodded.

“I’m in Miss Bennett’s!”

“Cool,” Stiles said. 

He wished his parents would hurry up. Scott folded his legs in the chair and peered at Stiles curiously, which made him squirm.

“Are you waiting for your mom, too?” he asked after a while, tilting his head to the side.

“Yeah…” 

Scott sighed and rolled his eyes as if he felt Stiles’s pain. “My mom always brings me here after school. She has to work a lot and my dad isn’t around anymore, so I have nowhere else to go.”

“Is your dad dead?” Stiles asked, rather bluntly.

“No! My mom and dad are divorced,” he responded, crinkling up his nose as if it were a dirty word. Stiles sort of understood. He knew a lot of people whose parents had divorced, but he couldn’t imagine living with just one parent himself.

There was another moment of silence in which Scott attempted to read one of the leaflets on the table, but quickly gave up with a spectacular sigh.

“I’ve read all of these like a thousand times,” he complained.

“What are they about?”

“Um, diseases… but… some of them are about…” Scott looked around the waiting room and lowered his voice, forcing Stiles to lean in closer, “… sex.”

Stiles blinked and looked at the cover of the leaflet Scott was holding. It certainly didn’t look like it was about sex, but then again, he wasn’t really sure what sex looked like. Scott grinned, wide and proud, like he’d just introduced Stiles to the most awesome thing in the world. He kind of had.

They read the leaflet together, and Stiles started to giggle. Scott kept saying “penis” and soon they were both on the floor, rolling around with laughter until their sides hurt. He’d almost forgotten that he was waiting for his parents, so the sound of the door finally opening made him jump with surprise (and a little bit of guilt).

“Come on, son,” his dad said with a tired smile. He nodded at Scott, who suddenly became sheepish in his presence. 

“You were in there forever!” Stiles complained, showing off his experienced pout. His dad ruffled his hair.

“It was only twenty minutes,” he chuckled. Stiles rolled his eyes, big and dramatic.

“I’m sorry, darling,” his mom apologised as she came out the office behind him. “The doctors are still trying to find out what’s wrong with me.”

“Still?” Stiles wrinkled his nose. His mom hadn’t been well for a while. She’d been having trouble sleeping, and kept forgetting things. He’d noticed that she didn’t finish her plate at dinner time any more, and that her skin had gotten paler and her eyes heavier.

“We’ll find out soon,” she promised him, “don’t worry.”

Stiles wasn’t really worried, though. She didn’t throw up or complain about stomach aches or bleed, so she was okay.

\--

His dad stood in the doorway, and it was obvious that he’d been crying. Stiles had seen his dad cry a few times, and always within the past few months. His mom came out from behind him, looking frail and tired. She’d looked like it for so long that it just seemed to be natural to him. She didn’t look as if she’d been crying. Her face was perfectly blank until her eyes rested on him, at which point they lit up with happiness. Stiles wasn’t sure why, but he ran up to her and gave her a hug.

Another woman stepped out with the doctor and Scott waved at her.

“Hi mom!” he called. His mom smiled at him a little sadly and said, “hi, Scott. Hello, Stiles.”

“You were in there forever again,” Stiles scolded his parents and crossed his arms.

“I’m sorry, darling. We can get a McDonald’s on the way home,” his mom said, taking his hand in her own.

Stiles pumped his fist into the air and grinned at Scott, who looked at him and then stared at his own mother expectantly. She breathed out a laugh and shook her head.

“Oh, no. Some other time. Come on; let’s go home.”

Stiles stuck his tongue out at Scott and Scott returned the gesture before grabbing hold of his mom’s extended hand. They disappeared down the corridor. 

He liked Scott’s mom. She was a nurse, and she’d made friends with his mom since she was always at the hospital. Ms McCall was always there to explain things to them. He liked that; she was better at it than the doctor, probably because all moms were good at explaining things. She even told him what they were doing to his mom, like when she had to lie in the loud machine for ages so that they could see her brain. The doctor tended not to tell him anything, so he was always confused.

The car journey was quiet and sad, but Stiles couldn’t understand why. They were getting a McDonalds. His dad especially was usually just as excited as him, and enjoyed Stiles’s happy meal toy just as much. 

Back at home at the dinner table, his mom knotted her fingers together and watched her thumbs without eating very much at all. 

“We have something to tell you,” she said eventually, calculated and slow. Stiles looked up at her with a mouth full of fries.

\--

Scott slid down the corridor and turned just in time to place his butt firmly on the seat besides Stiles. Stiles grinned at him.

“That was so cool,” he said. Scott had a look on his face that told him he knew.

“My mom said you can sleep over tonight!”

Stiles loved staying at Scott’s place. His mom was so cool. She let them stay up late and watch movies without sitting in the room as well and Stiles’s dad never did that- he always wanted them to spend time together as a family, and Stiles loved his mom and dad, he really did, but he got to see them every day! He only got to see Scott for about half of it, and when his mom and dad were there they couldn’t talk about everything at school because they’d just get involved and wouldn’t understand.

“My mom got Lord of the Rings! Do you want to watch it?”

“Yeah!”

They’d been to the cinema to see the last one together, with Scott’s mom again- Stiles’s mom didn’t leave the house much now, so she couldn’t take them, and Stiles’s dad didn’t like to leave her alone. It had been the most awesome thing they had ever seen, but they both wanted to be Aragorn and it caused at least two break times of conflict until Stiles had finally relented and agreed to be Gandalf. He wanted to watch it until he knew all the words, so that he could impress everyone at school. Most people there weren’t even allowed to watch Lord of the Rings.

There was an ear splitting scream of panic that shot from the doctor’s office that Stiles immediately recognised as his mothers. He jumped to his feet and ran to the door, with Scott at his heels.

His mom was crouched down on the floor with her knees pulled up to her chest and his dad was stood behind her, arms hovering like he was afraid to touch her. There was so much pain in his face that Stiles’s chest felt tight at the sight of it. 

“Get out, get out!” she squealed, but she wasn’t looking at Stiles or Scott.

Stiles had seen it before. Sometimes his mom would start screaming at something, and nobody else could see it. Most of the time she did it at night, because she had horrible nightmares that woke her up. It was terrifying, as if his mom could see ghosts like in the films, and they were always tormenting her. She always told them to leave her alone.

“Mrs Stilinski,” the doctor said, feigning calmness. “It’s alright. The only people in this room are myself, your husband, your son and his friend. Nobody is going to hurt you.”  
His mom grabbed his dad’s hand and squeezed it as if her life depended on it. It looked like it had to hurt, but his dad just closed his eyes and sucked his lower lip. Then she started to cry, big wailing sobs that made her shake. His dad knelt down and wrapped his arms around her. 

Stiles hovered by the door, wanting to hug her as well, but he was also too scared to. He hated it when she screamed and cried. He didn’t understand what was happening to her. Ms McCall tried to explain that his had an illness in her brain, but he didn’t understand how that made her see and hear things that weren’t there. When Stiles was ill he just got stomach aches and felt sleepy. 

He snivelled loudly and felt Scott hold his hand. He didn’t want to look at his friend. Scott had never seen his mom acting like this, and Stiles had never told him about it. He didn’t want people to know, because it was weird and scary.

Eventually, his mom calmed down. She wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeves and smiled shakily at her son.

“I’m sorry, darling. It was just another nightmare,” she explained. Stiles knew they weren’t nightmares; they were hallucinations, which were like nightmares you could have when you were awake, but he didn’t correct her. He just nodded sharply and then let go of Scott’s hand to run and gave her a hug. She patted his back soothingly. 

“You can go back outside with Scott. I promise I’m okay now. We can go home in a little bit.”

“Is your mom okay?” Scott asked when the door closed behind them. Stiles shrugged and blinked hard. He knew that she hadn’t always been that way, and that it was happening more often, so he guessed she wasn’t okay really. Scott gave him a hug, and Stiles hugged him back. They didn’t say anything else, and Stiles didn’t stay at Scott’s that night.

\--

“Ms McCall?”

Ms McCall was talking to Katie, who worked at the reception and told everybody when the doctor was ready to see them. She had a lot of important looking folders in her hand, but she stopped what she was doing immediately and smiled warmly at him.

“Is everything okay, Stiles?”

“Mom won’t wake up.”

\--

It didn’t rain at the funeral. Whenever Stiles saw a funeral on television, it was raining. Everyone wore black and looked sad, and the sky was grey and the grass was wet and muddy as they lowered the coffin into the ground.

It was a sunny day in the middle of June. Everyone still wore black, but it didn’t cover their entire bodies because it was too hot. Everyone looked sad, but also irritated as they fanned themselves with whatever they could find. Stiles’s dad’s hand was sweaty in his.

His mom was dead. He knew what death was; it meant that the person’s heart and brain and other organs weren’t working anymore, so they couldn’t speak or think ever again. It was like being asleep but without dreaming. A lot of people said that after somebody died, their soul went to heaven, which was a place in the sky full of dead people but it wasn’t supposed to be scary; everybody there was happy, and they could look down at the people still on earth and make sure they were okay.

Stiles didn’t come from a religious family, so he didn’t believe in that. Whenever his mom saw souls they were still on earth, and they hurt her.

He cried a lot at the funeral, and he cried when he got home. He cried himself to sleep. Then the next day he was okay for a while, but when he remembered that he’d never see his mom again he couldn’t breathe and the room closed in on him. Ms McCall said he’d had a panic attack.

Stiles didn’t go to school for a whole month, and his dad didn’t make him. He cried a lot too, but only when he didn’t think Stiles could see him. They had takeaway for dinner all the time because he thought it would make Stiles feel better, but after a while he just felt sick of it. He asked if his dad could make them a roast dinner like his mom used to make, and the look on his face told him that no, he couldn’t do that, but he tried. It wasn’t the same. Stiles learned how to make pasta and started cooking for his dad. Everyone avoided him at school except for Scott, and the teachers were too nice to him and let him get away with anything, which would have been cool if it didn’t make misbehaving get boring so quickly. Lydia smiled at him a few times, but it was a sad smile, and she never came to talk to him. It made him happy anyway, because Lydia was by far the prettiest girl at school and he was sure he was going to marry her one day. 

Scott and Stiles didn’t have any sleepovers for a long time. Stiles missed it so much, but every time he thought of leaving his dad at home alone for an entire night his stomach lurched, and he had horrible thoughts about coming back home and not being able to wake him up either. Scott invited him over a few times but never pushed it, and he was never upset when Stiles said no. Scott seemed to understand. Sometimes Ms McCall and Scott would invite them both over for dinner, and although his dad had refused the first couple of times, he eventually took them up on their offer. He saw his dad smile again, properly, for the first time in months while at their house, when Scott said something really stupid and made the entire table laugh. Then Stiles felt angry with him, because he thought that they shouldn’t be being happy without his mom there too, and he excused himself from the table and cried in the bathroom until Scott let himself in.

“I don’t think your mom would want you to be sad all the time, Stiles. She always tried to make you happy when I saw her, even when she was sad herself.”

“It’s not fair,” Stiles said through heavy tears.

“It’s stupid,” Scott agreed, sitting on the bathroom floor next to him until he stopped shaking.

\-- 

“Stiles, if you have it… we’ll do something.”

Stiles would have laughed at his best friend’s certainty if he hadn’t been so tired.

“I’ll do something,” Scott added. His expression was deadly serious, and it took a moment for Stiles to fully comprehend the weight of those words. He just barely managed to nod his head. Scott nodded too.

Inside the MRI machine he realised that he was surrounded by the exact same people he had been all those years ago, the first time he’d heard the words “frontotemporal dementia”.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> Nobody hates me more than I hate me for writing this.


End file.
